Quote Originally Posted by Elexia View Post
I play and played XI heavily so I know for a fact:

1. Your linkshell most likely had a website if it was ever seriously ran.
2. You had contact information of them.

They would have a way of knowing which server you guys landed on, it's funny though how with that option they would "have no way of knowing" but with any other option "they would know" even though how would they then you guys still even played due to the fact in a merge the linkshell would be deleted as well as friendlist due to potential multiple names?
OK so saying 'lost forever' was always an exageration, because they know where they are even if we don't. >.>;

The point is we won't necessarily be able to communicate with them. We have contact info for some not all of them, and contact info changes over time as lives change. Yes we have a website, but not everyone will remember it, or their login information. Our website has moved a few times over the years as leaders changed.

In a traditional A to B merger the linkshells on one of the servers aren't deleted nor do the players on that server suffer name changes. The in game flist we have now lacks the ability to survive a merger the way the XI flist did. If it did function like XI it would provide a means to contact people who got randomly relocated which is kind of my point; we don't have that yet. The best of both worlds would be an flist that spans XI & XIV. A good feature enhancement for SE accounts in my opinion.

Mergers are a necessary move, but lacking real flists, and linkshell features like /lsmes the process needs to take into account that our primary method of coordination is with ingame /tells. That's whats nice about option 2. You don't have to coordinate to land with your friends, but if you want to get away from them you can choose to leave and get a fresh social start on a new world. Its the best of both worlds in most respects. If for example people are merged onto mysidia, but linkshells on mysidia survive then the linkshell I created for the XI players would still serve as a common ground for communication even if some of us get hit with a name change because a merged player had that name first. That same truth would hold for at least three other large shells I have been in that moved en mass from XI at the 1.0 launch.

Option 4 is probably nicest to those worlds where only 100- 200 people are logged in at any given time, but hardest on those where larger player populations have created a number of large working social groups that often have social connections that span a number of shells. It seems more like a compromise that attempted to please the most people by completely leveling the playing field while at the same time giving the freedom to choose a landing spot. In truth in this case its easier if they just treat us like sheeple, and herd us in the right direction while preserving as much of the social order as they can post merger.